Blog article: Call for Feedback: Share your ideas for Toronto’s next Open Data Policy 

Published on January 20, 2025
Call for Feedback: Share your ideas for Toronto’s next Open Data Policy 

Article text

Hi, everyone! In our previous blog posts, we shared how (and why) the City is refreshing its open data policy and what we’ve learned so far from other cities. 

We’ve taken those learnings, consulted with our colleagues and drafted an early iteration of the policy. Now it’s time to get feedback from our users and other stakeholders!  

We want to ask City staff if the policy is easy to understand and feasible to implement? And we want to ask the public about how they’re using open data, what new data they’d like to see on the portal, and how the experience of using open data could be improved. 

Here’s how you can share feedback ⬇️   

Step 1: Review our goals  

We’re making changes to the open data policy and program to achieve four key goals:

  • to encourage all City of Toronto Divisions to be proactive participants in the open data program; 
  • to ensure the City is prioritizing the release of data that the public, businesses and City staff want and are likely to use; 
  • and to ensure open data is published in accordance with the City’s legislative responsibilities and its commitments to privacy, security and equity. 

*Step 2: Read the policy (this one’s optional!) 

If you’d like to read the latest policy draft, you can find it here.  

We know reading public policy isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time, so reviewing the policy is entirely optional; it isn’t required to complete our survey or share your ideas. However, reading the policy beforehand could help you refine those ideas and offer your best feedback. 

A quick disclaimer: the policy is still very much a draft. In design parlance, it’s in alpha. Nothing about the policy is fixed or final, and it doesn’t represent an official policy statement or commitment from the City. It’s likely to change based on the feedback you share with us!

Step 3: Complete the survey 

We’ve designed a short survey to collect your feedback on the City’s open data program and policy.  

There is one survey for the public, and a different survey for City staff. The deadline to fill out a survey is February 17, 2025.  

If you’re a real Open Data nerd (like us) and have more to say beyond the survey, don’t worry! We’re running a series of workshops to dive deeper into the policy this winter. You can sign up to participate at the end of the survey. We can’t promise we’ll be able to include everyone who registers, but we’ll do our best.  

Step 4: We’ll be in touch 

Once we’ve had a chance to take in and analyze your feedback, we’ll share back what we’ve learned. We’ll do that right here on our blog, so stay tuned! 

From everyone at Toronto Open Data: thank you for your participation and insight!